


borne are we (of the same root)

by intertwingular



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 90's Music, Ancient Runes, BAMF Hermione Granger, Basically everyone is in this - Freeform, Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Indian Harry Potter, Multi, POC Hermione Granger, Smart Ron Weasley, im kind of insulted that people still think ron is dumb but go off i guess, more tags to come, starts at the end of third year and (hopefully) will finish off in seventh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwingular/pseuds/intertwingular
Summary: Ginny dies in the Chamber of Secrets - twelve, scared, alone. Distantly, in the future, it might mean nothing - just another little girl, died too soon, forgotten before she could even be remembered.It changes (almost) everything.or,in which ginny dies in the chamber, and harry, ron and hermione learn that sometimes what's meant to break you just makes you brave.





	borne are we (of the same root)

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even _know_ how i got here. i have a solid 10 pages of just worldbuilding notes, several english to hindi translators open, and an _entire_ playlist on spotify for this. 
> 
> i don't think i need to say that this got kind of out of hand. 
> 
> as always, thank you to jun, the loml, for putting up with my endless screeching about this. i don't think she expected me to actually go off and do this, but here we are. doing it anyways. 
> 
> warning for character death re: ginny during this chapter, and allusions/mentions of child abuse re: harry & the dursleys. 
> 
> work title is from "seven steps verse" by caozhi. the whole line actually goes "borne are we from the same root; should you now burn me with such disregard?" it's a little weird/tragic because the narrator is a bean. yes, like the food, bean. chapter title is from "tessellate" by alt-j (which is a really good song. also a little creepy.)

Harry is familiar with fury. He’s spent _twelve years_ of his life full of it, simmering low and untouched, because anger is Uncle Vernon’s main emotion, and Harry used to think that the worst thing in the world was Uncle Vernon and his constant, unending fury. 

This — grief — is worse. The corners of Harry’s eyes prickle as Ron starts to cry, ears and nose flushing an ugly, angry red, but Harry hasn’t cried since he was four — doesn’t think he really knows how to, anymore. 

Harry reaches over and slips Ron’s hand into his. Around them, the Chamber of Secrets is cold and forbidding, shadows casting the disrepair into sharp relief. Fawkes is perched on a ledge, fiery tail the lone source of light, now that Riddle’s ghost is gone and Ron is too distraught to maintain even a _Lumos._

“ _Ginny,_ ” Ron sobs, pulling away from Harry to tug his sister’s body close, “Gin, you have to wake up, Mum and Dad are waiting.” 

Fawkes croons sadly from his perch. The Sorting Hat is silent, loosely clutched in Harry’s grubby, blood-stained hands. Gryffindor’s Sword is gone. 

“Ron,” Harry starts, stepping forward. 

“I _know._ ” Ron cradles Ginny’s head in his lap, eyes puffy and red. He’s still sniffling, chest heaving with the effort it takes to hold his tears back, and Harry takes another step closer. “I just…I was just hoping that…” 

She would wake up, Harry thinks, as Ron trails off, bowing his head. “We can’t carry her,” he says, instead of _I’m sorry,_ or _What can I do._

Ron’s breath hitches, and he starts crying again — softer, this time. “We — we can’t _leave _her here,” Ron says.__

“I know.” Harry looks up at Fawkes, up where the phoenix is perched, crooning a soft, sad song. “I’ll go and get a professor.” Turning away, Harry moves towards Ron, setting the Sorting Hat down beside him. “ _Lumos,_ ” he whispers, and leaves his wand beside Ron too.

Fawkes warbles out a high, warning note, and Harry barely looks up in time to see the phoenix as he swoops down. It hurts a little, when Fawkes lands atop his shoulders, bright pinpricks of pain blossoming where Fawkes’ claws dig through the thin material of Harry’s t-shirt. 

The faint light from his _Lumos_ turns Ginny’s hair to blood, spilling quietly from Ron’s lap. Fawkes croons — once, then twice, the sound soft, even though Fawkes is right next to Harry’s ear. 

Harry spins on his heel, away from Ron, away from Ginny, quiet and pale with her blood-red hair, and runs out and away from the Chamber until his chest aches from lack of air, and the flickering light of his _Lumos_ fades to black. 

He doesn’t know where Lockhart is. Maybe the ponce wandered off somewhere, maybe he’d gotten eaten by whatever other beasts are lumbering around in this hellscape. Harry’s too tired to care.

Fawkes butts his head against Harry’s cheek. He’s pleasantly warm, not burning like Harry thought a creature made of fire should’ve been. Harry’s chest tightens, and for a moment, it feels like his heart is beating in his throat. 

“I’m okay, Fawkes,” Harry mutters, clambering out from the passage’s mouth. Myrtle is still there, hovering in front of the passageway. 

“Oh,” she says, “I had hoped you died.” 

Harry scowls, the tight sensation in his chest giving way to a familiar fury. “Fuck _off_ , Myrtle,” Harry spits. “Not now.” 

Myrtle’s face screws up terribly, the furthest from sad Harry’s ever seen her. “You’re _awful,_ ” she wails, “I take everything I’ve said back. I don’t _want_ you in my toilet!” 

“Fine!” 

He wants to cry. But Harry hasn’t cried since he was four, and sometimes, being angry is easier than _trying_ to be properly sad. At least he knows _how_. Fawkes croons again, soothing and quiet, but Harry is already running from the girl’s loo, through the strange, empty halls, head down, heart pumping. 

He can’t get away quickly enough.

* * *

Ron’s not sure how long he’s alone with Ginny before Mum and Dad come. Harry left some time ago, and dimly, Ron notes that he’d left his wand, faintly glowing with a _Lumos,_ nestled beside Ron. 

Ron brushes Ginny’s hair out from her face. She’d always hated when it fell into her face. Ron doesn’t know when she stopped wearing those barrettes with the clay dragon eggs Charlie’d brought from Romania, or when she’d gotten so wan and pale, but it _hurts_ , looking at her now. 

_She’s so_ small, Ron thinks, and tucks her hair behind her ears.

Ginny doesn’t swat at him and call him an overbearing prick. She doesn’t huff and puff, like somehow, she might trigger some act of accidental magic that’ll move her hair from her face. She’s quiet. 

It’s so quiet. Ron thinks he might go insane from it all, from all the pressure and the silence and Ginny’s limp, unmoving weight on his lap.

“Gin,” he murmurs, pushing her hair back again, “I’m sorry.” 

He bows his head over her, and hopes, hopelessly, for one, drawn-out moment, that her breath might ruffle his bangs, that maybe, just _maybe,_ Ginny is just asleep. Just tired from being a walking, talking power source for a parasite in an old journal — not dead. 

There’s nothing. Ginny’s eyes stay closed, and no breath ruffles Ron’s unruly bangs. 

It’s an awfully long time before anyone makes it back down into the Chamber.

* * *

Mum and Dad bring Ron home the next day — there’s no end of the term, no end of year exams, just the scarlet Hogwarts Express pulling into Hogsmeade’s station nearly a month early as students pile on. 

Mum grips his hand tight before sending him through the Floo after Fred and George. Her eyes are red and swollen, hands trembling where they meet his, and Ron can’t bring himself to reach her eyes. None of them can, not really. 

“We should’ve noticed,” Percy had said, knuckles white as he gripped the sewn-together strap of his knapsack. “No,” he shook his head. “No, _I_ should’ve noticed.” They’d been huddled in the Gryffindor Common Room, while the school gathered in the Great Hall below. 

Harry had lingered. There wasn’t any need for him to go and listen to Dumbledore speak about Ginny — he’d been there, after all, for all the horrible moments of it, had brought Dumbledore down with Mum and Dad in tow, had pulled Ron to his feet while he shook in shock. 

“Stay,” Percy had said, when Harry had tried to flee, out the portrait door, to Merlin knows where. “You’re family.” 

_Fat load of good that does us now,_ Ron thinks. He knows that there’s nothing Mum or Dad can do about Harry’s location for the summer — they don’t like it, especially not after they’d learned about the bars on Harry’s lone window, or the cat flap in the door — but Lily Potter’s blood sacrifice is powerful magic that not even Dumbledore fully understands.

And the only thing keeping Harry safe. 

Hermione is recovering, far as Ron knows. She’d woken up a few days before, but by then, Ron had been too busy to go and see her, too caught up in the rush of _grief-loss-anger_ to pull himself away from his family to go to the hospital wing. 

Ron stares into the emerald green Floo flames. They remind him of the blurry forests painted onto the charmed walls of Ginny’s bedroom, the same green she’d insisted on getting a hair ribbon in after meeting Harry on Platform 9 ¾ nearly two years ago. 

He misses her already. The feeling hollows him from the inside, eating him away until the world is grey and numb and the days pass as if underwater. 

Nobody says anything when Ron leaves the living room. Soon all their relatives will begin to filter in — all of Dad’s brothers and his sisters too, Aunt Muriel with her awful personality and commentary, even Great-Uncle Bilius with his shirt likely buttoned all wrong, just like Yule last year. 

Ron knows how funerals go. He remembers when Uncle Gideon died, how Mum had been the one to tuck the Sacred Nine around his corpse, wan in the pure white robes they’d buried him in. Ron doesn’t remember much more than that — Bill, Percy, and Charlie: they all remember it far better than either him or the twins. 

“Bill and I were pallbearers,” Charlie had said, hands laced in his lap. He’d been home from Romania, fresh out of his first year of his taming apprenticeship. “We were old enough, y’know? And Uncle Fabian was already dead, so it wasn’t like Mum had enough male relatives to bear the coffin. So it was just us and Dad’s brothers.” 

Ginny had always hated white. She’d lived in color — greens and reds and blues that turned her hair from ginger to flame. 

Ron can’t even begin to imagine her without it. 

He traces the staircase railing on his way to Ginny’s room. There are grooves where they’d all carved their names — Ron remembers being five, as Bill pressed the Transfigured whittling knife into his hand, guiding his hand as Ron painstakingly carved his name into the wood of the railing. 

He pushes open Ginny’s bedroom door. 

Ron sits in Ginny’s room for what feels like a day and a month and a year wrapped up into one terrible, aching blur. The walls are charmed with the blue sky out back, the one that they all waited for so they could go flying over the fen, and Ron watches as the clouds puff along lazily. 

Ginny is gone. Her bed is set, and it still smells faintly of the broom polish Ron had helped her knick from Charlie, last he’d been home. The little otter Mum had sewn for her isn’t sitting in front of Ginny’s mountain of homesewn pillows, silently watching with its button-shell eyes: it’s still at Hogwarts, on the red and gold bed Ginny will never sleep in again. 

She’ll never sleep on this bed again, either. It’ll be the only empty room in the Burrow, now: forever blue skies and patchwork green quilts. 

Ginny is gone. 

It’s just the six of them now — Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George and Ron. No more Ginny. No little sister, demanding to tag along, no little sister asking Mum to braid her hair back so she could fly easier, no little sister stealing the last roll at dinner when they all look the other way. 

It’s just the six of them now — and Ron is the youngest again. 

Ginny is gone.

* * *

Aunt Marge comes to visit over the summer, and Harry gets a job at the local grocer just to get away from her and her horrible dog. Mrs. McLoughlan runs a tight ship, but her daughter, Daisy, slips him snacks whenever she wanders in, so it’s far from terrible. 

Having spending money is nice — almost as nice as getting out of the Dursleys’ house. Mrs. McLoughlan’s grocery is in a richer area of Surrey — a fifteen minute walk from Privet Drive, and a ten minute walk from the busier city area too, so there are some days when Harry wanders closer to the city, staring into the windows of the shops. 

The shops with Walkmans and their gleaming yellow cases, record players with engraved leather cases and chunky white Polaroid cameras are interesting. Dudley has a Walkman in fire-truck red, abandoned somewhere in his pit of a bedroom, and Aunt Petunia has a record player from when she was a child — Harry remembers seeing his mother’s name written along the bottom. 

He stares at the record player through the window of the store. She had something like this, Harry thinks, and wonders — _did she dance to the music? Did she sit quietly and read beside it, half-listening?_

There’s so much Harry doesn’t know about her about his Mum, his Dad, about the world he was meant to grow up in: about the world he was meant to have. And the thing is that Harry _wants_ it all — all of it, from the horrible pureblood politics, to Godric’s Hollow, to that tiny house, tucked away in a Muggle village, filled with warmth and love that Harry can barely remember. 

He wants all the things Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon won’t give him. Harry wants his dad, wants the culture that comes with the blood in his veins. 

Hagrid had told Harry once, about how his dad had spoke Hindi — how all of his dad’s friends had learnt it too, but how Dad had switched from Hindi to Malay to English when excited, how he’d complained about the lack of proper spices, proper chopsticks, how _bright_ Harry’s mum and dad had been. 

Harry looks away from the electronics store. Mrs. McLoughlan had given him his paycheck on Friday — five hundred pounds even, more Muggle money than Harry has ever had in his entire _life_ — and half of it is tucked away, under the loose floorboard in the spare bedroom, sandwiched between the pages of his first-year Transfiguration textbook, the pages carved out to make a hiding place. The other half is tucked into his shirt, in the pocket Harry had sewn inside of it last summer, when hiding Hedwig’s owl treats became harder and harder to do. 

The electronics store’s owner is away for lunch. It’s nearing twelve, and stores are closing for the lunch hour, restaurants opening their doors for the daily rush, but Harry isn’t here for the electronics store. Not yet, anyways. 

Tucked away in an alleyway, a block away from the electronics store with it’s crooked neon sign, was the bookstore. Harry rings the bell as he enters, pushing the gauzy curtains away as he closes the door behind him. 

“ _Hari!_ ” Mr. Agrawal pops up from behind the counter. His wife pokes her head around one of the packed bookcases and smiles quietly at him. “Welcome back. Daisy came in earlier to let us know that Ol’ Maisie was keeping you a little later than usual today.” 

It smells of spices and something oddly nostalgic in the bookshop. Harry thinks that maybe, once, his parent’s home in Godric’s Hollow might have smelled like this, like foreign spices and old, aging books. 

“Hi, Mr. Agrawal,” Harry murmurs. He looks down, and Mera is purring quietly, twining around his ankles. “And hello to you too, Mera.” Mera rumbles, low in her throat, curling up as Harry lifts her into his arms. She’s much lighter than the last time he saw her. 

Mr. Agrawal hums, sliding a book across the counter to Mrs. Agrawal. “Mera’s kittens came last week, Hari.” If Harry strains to listen, he can hear the kittens’ tinny mewling from the Agrawals’ flat about their shop. “Want to take one home with you?” 

“Maybe later, Mr. Agrawal. My aunt’s really allergic,” he lies. _Maybe later,_ Harry thinks, _when it’s time to go to Hogwarts._ Hermione likes — _loves_ — cats, and Mera is so very pretty, all thick, sleek tortoiseshell fur. Her kittens must be pretty too, even though their da’ must be that alley tabby Harry always sees skulking around the bookshop awning. 

“ _Hindi bolo_ , Hari,” Mrs. Agrawal reminds him, poking her head around the bookshelves once more. “ _Yadi aap kabhee abhyaas nahin karenge to aap kaise seekhenge?_ ” 

Harry gnaws on his lip. “Uh...you can’t learn without practice?” He’s not exactly sure what Mrs. Agrawal is saying — he only catches learn (seekhenge), practice (abhyaas), and can’t (nahin karenge). 

She smiles, eyes hooded and lips barely drawn over her teeth. “ _Bahut badhiya,_ ” she murmurs. 

Not for the first time, Harry is struck by what an odd pair she and Mr. Agrawal make. Mrs. Agrawal strikes a cutting figure, lean and lithe with hooded eyes and a reticent smile. Mr. Agrawal is nearly her polar opposite, round and warm where his wife is elegant and cold. 

“ _Dhanyavaad,_ ” Harry says.

“You’re getting better! Much better than when you first came to us, Hari.” Mr Agrawal pops up again, dragging a footstool behind him. “ _Hiiriye,_ ” he calls, “help me get those books from the top shelf?” 

“ _Mujhe stool de do._ ” Mrs. Agrawal slides the books onto the register countertop. “Hari, translate what I just said into English.” 

“Uh,” Harry pauses, Mera still purring contentedly. _Mujhe do,_ he thinks. “Uh...give me the stool?” 

Mrs. Agrawal nods, sliding the stool up against the bookshelf in question. “Ah,” she says, books in hand. “ _Ye kis lie hain…?_ ”

“ _Haan. Usaka dost jisane bahan ko kho diya._ ” Mr. Agrawal turns to him, accepting the books from Mrs. Agrawal. “These are for you, Hari. Funeral rite books — for the friend who has just lost his sister.” 

_Ginny._ Harry swallows the lump forming in his throat. “Oh.” He takes the books, hands shaking. “Th — I mean, _dhanyavaad, Shree_ Agrawal, _Shreematee_ Agrawal.” 

“ _Yah koee samasya nahin hai_ ,” Mrs. Agrawal murmurs. “Now, come upstairs. You should meet Mera’s kittens, and we’ve _maggi_. You must be hungry.” 

“ _Haan,_ ” Harry replies. Mera is warm in his arms, Mr. Agrawal is talking cheerfully about the new shipment of books the store is due to get in a fortnight, and the store smells of spices, of fragrant chai and the _maggi_ Mrs. Agrawal made. He has money in his pockets, and an entire day, stretching in front of him. 

Hogwarts is so far away, and last year’s tragedy is always, _always_ on his mind, but here, in Mr. and Mrs. Agrawal’s store, the Dursleys and Privet Drive feel far away too. 

“So,” Mrs. Agrawal says, on the stairs to the flat, “have you picked out a Walkman model yet? Krish left a few of his tapes behind, last he visited, for you.”

“I’ve looked at a few,” Harry confesses, “but I think a smaller one would be better for me…” 

It’s okay.

* * *

And then it _isn’t_ , because Aunt Marge has the photo of Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest of the Weasley clan on the train platform last year, and Harry is balling his fists under the dinner table as Aunt Marge talks about why they’re all such _miserable children, they have to be bred all wrong, making friends of the sorts your nephew is here, Vernon,_ and then she looks at _Ginny._

Ginny, who _died_ , wan and pale in the Chamber of Secrets, because Harry wasn’t quick enough. Ginny, whose limp body Ron cradled so gently in his arms, with her hair like a spill of scarlet on the grimy, dusty floor. 

The _things_ Aunt Marge has to say about Ginny. She calls her a _wench_ , calls her _inbred_ and _shameful_ , calls her a _no good, God-hating ginger_ — and then Harry can’t take it anymore. Everything hurts, and Harry just wants her to _shut up_ , wants to go back to the Agrawals’ bookshop, where Mera will twine around his ankles until she can settle on his lap, purring deep and low in her throat, where Krish has the newest Cure tape. Harry wants to be in the Burrow, with Ron and the Weasleys, wants to play Quidditch in the fen out back and breathe in the mossy scent of morning.

He blows her up. Harry is _angry_ , because Harry is always angry, but this is something worse. It feels almost like poison, watching Aunt Marge inflate with air, floating to the ceiling, Brutus howling and barking. Uncle Vernon is a shade of puce and Aunt Petunia is screaming at the top of her lungs, and Harry tears out of the dining room. 

He shoves his things into his trunk. All his textbooks from last year are piled in, stacks of them with their slightly beat-up covers and ink-stained pages. Harry balls his clothing up, shoving it in as his breath quickens. Already, he can hear Uncle Vernon’s bellowing getting closer — he’s so angry, Harry realizes, much angrier than Uncle Vernon has ever been before.   
Already, Harry can feel the phantom of Uncle Vernon’s belt buckle breaking the skin of his back. He tries not to flinch at the memory. 

He sweeps his pens and pencils into the little canvas pouch from the convenience store a block away from Mrs. McLoughlan’s, wraps his quills in layers of socks and prays that they don’t snap as he runs away. 

Last to go is his Walkman. It gleams faintly in the small slats of moonlight that make it through the bars on his windows, and Harry lets himself turn it over in his hands, feeling the way his callouses catch on the ridged edges of the volume dial, lets himself rub his thumb once over the place where he’d painstakingly Sharpied his name along the edge. 

The yelling is getting louder. Harry shoves his Walkman into Krish’s old backpack — the one Mrs. Agrawal had stitched back up for him and tucked the books on Hindi and the ones on the traditions for a culture Harry misses, despite never really knowing. Harry shoves his old, holey trainers on and ties one of Dudley’s massive hand-me-down sweatshirts around his waist, shouldering his backpack with a frenetic energy that he hadn’t thought himself capable of. 

Harry’s not sure how he avoids Uncle Vernon, isn’t sure if Uncle Vernon’s fists hit him, or if someone knocks him into a wall — all he knows is that he’s running, faster than Harry’s ever run before. Every breath causes his lungs to whistle pitifully and it isn’t long before Harry curls up against a fence, some distance away from Privet Drive, chest heaving and head spinning. 

His wand slides out from his sleeve, clattering to the floor. Harry untucks his head from between his arms, and reaches out, twirling it absentmindedly between his fingers. 

It’s so dark outside. A _Lumos_ would be nice, but Harry is reminded all too vividly about the summer before this, about the Howler with it’s scarlet envelope, loud, angry voice, and the promise of a snapped wand and loss of the only home Harry had ever known. 

He sticks his wand out and debates — and then, from nowhere, there’s a crack and a bus appears in front of him, a double-decker, like the ones in London proper, but purple instead of red. 

A red-faced, pimply man pushes the door open. “Welcome ‘board the Knight Bus,” he says, smile missing nearly half its teeth. “Where y’goin’?”

**Author's Note:**

>  **hindi translations:**  
>  hindi bolo - speak hindi   
> yadi aap kabhee abhyaas nahin karenge to aap kaise seekhenge? - how will you learn without practice?  
> bahut badhiya - very good  
> dhanyavaad - thank you  
> hiiriye - diamond-like one (an affectionate nickname)   
> mujhe stool de do - give me the stool   
> ye kis lie hain? - this is for?  
> haan - yes   
> usaka dost jisane bahan ko kho diya - his friend that lost the sister  
> shree/shreematee - mr./mrs.   
> yah koee samasya nahin hai - you must be hungry
> 
> maggi is "the ultimate indian comfort food," according to my friend. they're basically instant noodles, from what i can gather? they're supposed to be really good, but i guess the variant mrs. agrawal would be talking about is maggi goreng, which is essentially a fried noodle dish made from the instant noodles. 
> 
> anyways, let me know if any of the hindi is wrong! most of it is literally just english i ran through a translator, so if anyone wants to correct me, i'd really appreciate it. also, as just a fun fact, "hari" and "james" are both indian names (i think james is adopted from the anglican one, though i could be wrong), and that's why i just left it the way it was. 
> 
> harry's walkman is a little beat up, because he bought it new, and it also has like, two tapes (a cure tape and a pearl jam tape). the 90's are alive in this fic, and if that's a good thing or not remains to be seen, honestly. 
> 
> either way! i've rambled on for long enough. i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave me a review for motivation and subscribe if you want to see future chapters! i also frequently post little updates on the chapters i'm working on @ my twitter - [ mochiicreams. ](https://twitter.com/mochiicreams)drop a dm if you ever want to talk! 
> 
> until next time!


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